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Consumer Checklist: Helping Small Business Navigate Healthcare Reform

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Today we’re going to provide small businesses with some information about healthcare reform. We’ve put together a checklist, so you can walk through each important item one-by-one.

What does a checklist do? It helps you navigate. If you have a checklist of items, you’ll know exactly what you need and where to get those items. It’s just like running errands. By having a checklist, you won’t forget the important things either. The things that will save you time, money, and help you improve coverage.

Item #1: Determine if you’re a small business.

This is number one. You want to establish this right away. Why? Because there are costly tax penalties that may be incurred if you’re actually a “large business” and don’t provide health coverage to your employees. As it stands, “large businesses” are mandated to provide healthcare coverage to their workers. Small businesses are not.

Knowing whether-or-not you’re a small business will also help you determine your plan design strategies. Providing health benefits for yourself or your employees as a small business owner differs greatly compared to those of large businesses.

Question: What is the definition of “small business” with regard to the healthcare reform law? Answer: Small businesses are businesses with less than 50 fulltime equivalent employees for the previous calendar year. You’ll sometimes see “fulltime equivalent employee” abbreviated as “FTE.” This is a very important concept. Also, your FTE count DOES include part-time employees. A part-time employee is defined as working less than 30 hours per week, and there’s a calculation when determining their “full time equivalency.” If you’re anywhere near 50 FTE, you’ll want to make sure to have this all sorted out, because there are costly tax penalties for those employers that are over 50 FTE and don’t provide health coverage.

Item #2: Know the differences between individual health plans and small group health plans.

The second important item is to know the differences between individual coverage and small group health insurance coverage. If you know anything about health insurance, you’ll know that these are two parts of the industry are completely different. They have different characteristics. There are different rules. There are different eligibility criteria. There are different tax incentives.

Depending on your business, your objectives, your budget, and other considerations… you’ll need to determine what kind of health insurance plan you want to work with: A) Individual health insurance plans, or B) A group health insurance plan.

The good news: because of healthcare reform, it’s now easier than ever before to work with individual health insurance plans to provide coverage to your employees. And in certain cases, it might even make more sense. Know how individual health insurance plans and the health insurance exchanges can work for small business.

That being said, group health insurance can still be an important option for small businesses. Group health insurance plans also have the best tax incentives, especially if employees are contributing to the plan. Physician networks are also sometimes better when working with small group health insurance plans.

Additionally, there is now a group health insurance plan called SHOP (the Small Business Health Options Program) that is available through the health insurance marketplaces. SHOP can provide tax-credits to help with premiums for qualified small businesses.

Item #3: Decide if you’re going to provide health coverage for your entire group or just yourself. 

Remember: small businesses (less than 50 FTE) are not required to provide health coverage to their employees. However, if you’re not going to provide coverage, you and your employees will still need to find an individual health insurance plan somewhere on your own. The reason? Everyone has to have health coverage or pay a tax penalty.

Determine if you have a budget for your entire group. There could be strategies that are surprisingly affordable, especially based on the size and average income of your group.

Item #4: Understand the different planning strategies for small business.

There are a variety of different planning strategies that are available to small businesses. These different strategies can utilize individual insurance plans, or group insurance plans.

Health insurance is a very basic benefit that can help you attract and retain quality employees. If you determine that you’d like to help provide coverage for your employees, you’ll want to come up with a program that fits your objectives best. Here are a few of them:

Defined Contribution Strategy: “Defined contribution” is a retirement planning phrase. It’s been around for a long time. You can Google it and read all about it. Health benefits planners are now using “defined contribution” strategies to fund healthcare. And it’s simple. It’s exactly what it says it is: you “define a contribution” (ie: $300) per month, and employees then purchase their own individual health insurance plans. Employees can pick from insurance policies that are both on or off the public health insurance marketplaces (where they may also receive substantial subsidies, based on income). This strategy is budgetable, and gets business owners out of the business of making insurance decisions. Employees make their own decisions and purchase their own plan. Effectively, all it is is an after-tax stipend. A raise.

Consumer Directed Health Planning: This can also be referred to as account based or equity based planning. Small business owners can provide their employees access to a high deductible health plan (usually a group plan), and then pair it up with an HRA (health reimbursement arrangement) or HSA (health savings account). The HRA or HSA becomes an asset that builds equity over time. You retain funds that would normally go to the insurance companies in the form of premiums, and ownership of the account stays with either the employee or business, depending on your strategy.

Small Business Health Options Program (known as SHOP): This is a new program that has been made available on both the federal and state health insurance exchanges. It was specifically designed to help small businesses (under 50 FTE) provide a group health insurance plan to their employees. Depending on income and size of your group, you may also be eligible for a sizable tax credit (up to 50% of premiums).

Item #5: Know where you have access to products, advice, customer service, and consultation.

This is the last item on the list. Know where you can find help. Find effective advisers that can help you sort everything out. A “one-stop-shop” can help you save time, money, and a lot of hassle by “outsourcing” your small business health benefits planning. It’s like having your own human resources department.

And the good news: brokers are typically compensated by the insurance companies in the form of commissions. So you don’t have to worry about broker fees, etc. Compensation is built into every single health insurance plan regardless of whether-or-not you choose to work with an adviser.

Additionally, a broker will keep you “in the know” about new products, strategies, and reforms. They should offer a broad range of products and services that will make your planning very convenient for you. Here are some of the qualities you should look for in a broker/consultant:

  • Licensed, accredited, ethical. Find consultants that are licensed by the Department of Insurance to do business in your state. Take it a step further and find advisers that have professional designations. People with these designations provide advanced knowledge, and also adhere to strict ethical standards.
  • A strong selection of reputable product choices. Your broker/consultant should offer you a wide variety of choices from reputable insurance companies.
  • Advice and consultation in non-insurance products and services. Your broker/consultant should also be offering products and services that are considered “non-insurance products.” After-all, the goal is to fund healthcare efficiently, and there are important tools that can help accomplish this besides just insurance policies. Things like HRAs (health reimbursement arrangements), HSAs (health savings accounts), COBRA administration, knowledge of tax incentives, etc. Find a well-rounded broker.

And that’s it. That’s your healthcare reform checklist for small business. By understanding the points we’ve made, you’ll be on the right path to drafting a health benefits program that fits you or your business best.

We help individuals and businesses sort everything out at Policy Advantage Insurance Services. We can help you design an effective, efficient program that fits your objectives. Please contact us anytime for a free consultation.

Thanks for stopping by, we hope you found our information to be valuable. Check back at our blog to get further information about funding healthcare. Also, please share with your friends, clients, colleagues, and family. Here are a few of our other information outlets:

Home Page: https://policyadvantage.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/policyadvantage

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/policyadvantage

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/policyadvantage

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/policyadvantage

Word Press (you are here): http://www.policyadvantage.wordpress.com

 

Policy Advantage Insurance Services: How We Can Help

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Today’s article is about how Policy Advantage Insurance Services can help you with your health benefits planning. As you know, we’ve written a few blog posts about this topic in the past. If you’re new, we’d encourage you to catch up here:

Policy Advantage Insurance Services literally has the ability to help you with your health benefits planning, no matter what your current situation is. This blog post intends to specifically identify where we can help.

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  • Employers of Any Size: We have the ability to help any size employer, large or small. If you’re a business owner or executive, you probably know that there are some important differences between businesses (especially your number of full time equivalent employees), when it comes to healthcare reform. We can help employers with 2, 20, 80, 500, or even 1000’s of employees. We can help you design an effective, efficient, and budget-conscience health plan that will fit any business.
  • Individual Health Insurance Plans Off of the Exchange: Are you self-employed or not offered a health insurance plan at work? It’s now easier than ever to “shop” and find individual health insurance. If your income is too high to qualify for exchange subsidies, we can help you find a plan off of the exchange. These are plans that are purchased directly through the insurance companies.
  • Individual Health Insurance Plans On the Exchange: If you’d don’t currently have access to an affordable health insurance plan, and your income is between 100% and 400% of FPL, you may qualify for help with your insurance premiums through the new health insurance exchanges in the form of “Advanced Premium Tax Credits” (or APTCs). These credits can significantly reduce the amount of your monthly premiums. Policy Advantage Insurance Services is “Covered California Certified” and can help you select plans on the new exchange.
  • SHOP Plans On the Exchange: The “SHOP” program is the new “Small Business Health Options Program.” This is a new program on the exchange that is specifically designed to help small businesses (under 50 employees) expand health insurance options to their employees. Those businesses that have less than 25 employees may see significant tax-credits to off-set the cost of premiums. The SHOP program is a group health insurance plan.

As you can see, Policy Advantage Insurance Services has the capacity to help you in any circumstance. If you are a business, individual, or self-employed, we can help you find a plan that will fit your situation. One of our biggest goals is to help our clients save money and improve coverage. Contact us today, and we’ll help you sort it all out.

Thanks for stopping by, we hope you found our information to be valuable. Check back at our blog to get further information about funding healthcare. Also, please share with your friends, clients, colleagues, and family. Here are a few of our other information outlets:

Home Page: https://policyadvantage.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PolicyAdvantage

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PolicyAdvantage

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/PolicyAdvantage

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/PolicyAdvantage

Word Press: http://www.policyadvantage.wordpress.com

Insurance Brokerage Explained: An “Insurance Store”

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Hi, and welcome back to another blog post here at Policy Advantage Insurance Services. Today we’re explaining the concept of the insurance broker, and how a broker can benefit you as an individual or business.

As explained in one of our past blog posts: “5 Reasons to Give Yourself the Advantage,” we described the different ways that our clients can really benefit from the services of a health benefits broker. Your broker can be a very valuable asset.

So, instead of repeating what we went over in that blog post, we’re going to conceptualize the broker concept in this one. When we say conceptualize, we mean we’ll put it into everyday terms for you.

The first important thing to understand is the actual definition of “broker.” Here it is:

A broker is one that negotiates insurance contracts on behalf of the insured, therefore representing the client’s interest, not the insurer’s.

With that definition on-hand, you now understand that brokers are working in the interest of the client, and not the insurance companies. Two of the biggest goals of an insurance broker:

  1. Help the client save money.
  2. Help the client improve coverage.

If we can achieve both in a single case (whether at the individual or group level), we’ve hit a home run. It’s what we try to do for our clients every single time.

Now, we’ll move on to the conceptualization of the term “broker.” Our goal is to make it familiar to you, by comparing it to everyday things.

So, let’s keep it simple: a broker is really an “insurance store.” It’s just like any other store where you purchase goods or services.

For example, a sporting goods store will carry items from Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, Louisville Slugger, Rawlings, and others for their customers to choose from. Or, a grocery store will carry items from Quaker Oats, Chiquita Bananas, Kellogg’s, Frito-Lay, and many other food brands. A customer goes to these stores, and shops for the items that they want.

An insurance broker is no different. Effectively, a brokerage is a place where customers can shop the different insurance brands like: Anthem Blue Cross, Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, Aflac, HealthNet, and many others. There can also be accessibility to the new state health insurance exchanges (ie: Covered California) through brokers.

A brokerage is a place where selections can be made based on preferences like:

  1. Type of coverage.
  2. Cost of coverage.
  3. Network access.
  4. Coverage and costs that fit your business’ (or family’s) specific needs.

You’re able to “one-stop-shop” for the coverage that fits you best. An insurance brokerage customer also gets the added value of licensed professionals that can assist with specific questions when selecting coverage (persons with the RHU® or REBC® designations can also be very valuable to you).

Thanks for stopping by today, we hope you found our information to be valuable. Check back at our blog to get further information about funding healthcare. Also, please share with your friends, clients, colleagues, and family. Here are a few of our other information outlets:

Home Page: https://policyadvantage.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PolicyAdvantage

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PolicyAdvantage

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/PolicyAdvantage

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/PolicyAdvantage

Word Press: http://www.policyadvantage.wordpress.com

5 Reasons to “Give Yourself the Advantage”

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There are a lot of great reasons to put a health benefits broker to work for yourself or your company these days. As health insurance planning (and the health benefits industry in general) continues to grow more complex… having an informed, knowledgeable, and up-to-date adviser on your team can be a really big advantage.

Here are 5 great reasons to “give yourself the advantage” today:

  1. Healthcare Reform is Fast Approaching: The major portions of healthcare reform (ObamaCare, ACA, the Affordable Care Act, or whatever you want to call it) are quickly approaching. We can’t emphasize this enough. Although it will take years to implement (and there will no-doubt be changes), you’ll want to make sure that you have a good understanding about what is coming up in 2014 (and beyond). Whether you’re an individual or business, if you “miss the boat,” it could end up costing you a lot of money. Contact us with questions today. **Update 1/1/2014: Healthcare reform is here.
  2. Health Insurance and Health Benefits are Complex: As the health insurance and health benefits “system” continues to grow larger, navigating this landscape can become an increasingly burdensome chore for the typical consumer. We’ve got great news for you: we know this industry well, and can help you navigate it. There’s not a better feeling than having an informed friend on your side, helping you with the ins-and-outs. Just check our growing list of customer testimonials.
  3. Save Money and Improve Coverage: Yes, you heard that right. Individuals and business owners take note: with just a few simple adjustments to your current program, you may be able to improve your coverage, and save money at the same time. How’s that for a home run? Having someone in your corner (who knows the industry well) can help you accomplish this. Consider it a “tune-up” for your health insurance program, free of charge. Example: a minor adjustment with a tax incentive here, then a simple adjustment to a physician network there… and boom. You’ve got better coverage at a cheaper price. Granted, improvement doesn’t happen every single time, but in many cases, it’s possible. Contact us to help you look it over.
  4. Valuable, Up-to-Date, Relevant Information: This is one of our big areas of emphasis at Policy Advantage Insurance Services. We know this industry changes. Sometimes quickly. We stay up-to-date with the information that we provide using a number of different strategies. The two big ones: A) Professional Designations (ie: the RHU®/Registered Health Underwriter® and REBC®/Registered Employee Benefits Consultant are the undisputed professional credentials in our industry). B) Information from our partnerships and affiliations (ie: insurance companies, third party administrators, and educational institutions). Companies like Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, United Healthcare, and others are constantly providing us with fresh information that we get out to our client base and readers. We take great pride in providing you with up-to-date info.
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  1. Insurance Company Choices and Options: With a broker, you don’t just choose from one insurance company, you get to choose from many. A broker is like an “insurance store.” This can be very important for a number of different reasons. Physician and hospital networks vary from insurance company to insurance company. Insurance premiums may also vary. The structure and the way that managed care organizations (or MCOs) operate  can also vary considerably. These are all good reasons why it’s a good idea to give yourself some choices when it comes to health insurance companies.

As you can see above, you can “give yourself the advantage” today. Our number one priority are our clients and customers, and helping you navigate the complex world of health insurance and health benefits.

Thanks for stopping by, we hope you found our information to be valuable. Check back at our blog to get further information about funding healthcare. Also, please share with your friends, clients, colleagues, and family. Here are a few of our other information outlets:

Home Page: https://policyadvantage.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PolicyAdvantage

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PolicyAdvantage

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/PolicyAdvantage

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/PolicyAdvantage

Word Press: http://www.policyadvantage.wordpress.com